Google has announced that “mobile-friendly” websites will receive a special notice in search results. According to Google: We see these labels as a first step in helping mobile users to have a better mobile web experience. We are also experimenting with using the mobile-friendly criteria as a ranking signal. So there you go. A “mobile-friendly” version will help you in organic search results sooner rather than later. Read the official Google announcement...

Mobile advertising for your business need not be scary or complicated. In fact, you can be running trackable, optimizable, reliable mobile ads tomorrow. All you need is a Google keyword campaign to start your mobile advertising. From 2012 to 2013, mobile Internet use in the U.S. more than doubled. Google noticed this and stopped allowing phone numbers in ad copy. Now the advertiser’s telephone number is a separate link that incurs a charge when clicked to call. Today, about half the clicks in our Google keyword campaigns are generated on a mobile device. Most are for a telephone call to the advertiser. Google allows us to tailor ads by device; phone, tablet or desktop. We can even create links that only appear to mobile users. And we can choose to bid higher or lower for mobile users. That means we can use Google to create mobile campaigns. Mobile ads give you some cute creative ideas. One of my clients has many of his Google clicks and calls coming from the zip code where his major competitor is located. People are in the showroom and comparing prices on their mobile device! So, we offer to meet or beat the competitor’s prices on mobile device ads! It works. People walk in with the competitor’s estimate in hand. Small business and professionals should not be afraid of mobile advertising. It’s just another tool in the tool box and you need to learn to use it. Like anything else, start small, iterate and test. You’ll learn what works for you and your customer base. photo credit: William Hook via photopin...

When E-commerce Times had a question about LinkedIn’s new University Pages, they asked Mike: “Universities have two audiences: the parent and the child,” Poller told the E-Commerce Times. “The prospective student chooses school based on academic and social offerings, among others. The parent often has veto power and often pays for the university choice.” Read the entire article...

LinkedIn recently ranked all their 200,000,000 profiles by viewership and sent a congratulatory note to the top 10%… I’ll keep sharing the strange, funny, useful and sometimes outrageous information I find online with you in 2013. Thanks for...

Remember the “Science: It’s a Girl Thing” European Commission fiasco? Well Curt Rice has made lemons from lemonade. For a good example of using crowdsourcing, read Curt’s rundown here. Of course, serendipity, in the form of having a Nobel Laureate reading your tweets, really helps get the ball...